Ian Murdock – And we learn about Debian

In late 1993 or early winter 1994, Purdue junior Ian Murdock visited his parents for dinner at their home near Lafayette, Indiana. He was studying computer science, supporting himself partly through restaurant and cafeteria jobs, and had recently been absorbed in a project that sometimes kept him working through the night. Over apple pie, he told his parents they could stop helping with his expenses: he had spoken with Richard Stallman, founder of the Free Software Foundation, who offered him $30,000 to continue his work. When Ian asked what he was expected to do for the money, Stallman reportedly told him simply to keep doing what he was already doing.

That work was Debian, an operating system built around the Linux kernel and intended to be practical, freely available, and developed collectively. Ian envisioned volunteers contributing components that would be tested, improved, and incorporated into official releases. He planned to set out the project’s guiding principles in the Debian Manifesto, published a few months later; the name joined “Debra,” his girlfriend’s name, with his own. His father sees the project as an expression of traits Ian had shown since childhood: imagination, creativity, high standards, determination, and commitment to sharing. Ian, he recalls, would have pursued the work even without pay. Debian has since grown into a system used worldwide by millions of people, organizations, and servers.